We study a model colloidal liquid crystal consisting of hard spherocylinders under the influence of an external aligning potential by Langevin dynamics simulation. The external field that rotates in a plane acts on the orientation of the individual particles and induces a variety of collective nonequilibrium states. We characterize these states by the time-resolved orientational distribution of...

Antiferro- and ferro-electric ordering has been discovered in orthogonal smectic phases composed of nonchiral bent-core molecules. These systems are the only proper fluid ferroelectrics confirmed experimentally so far. We consider a molecular theory of proper ferroelectric ordering in isotropic, nematic and smectic A phases and conclude that the delicate balance between the tendencies for local...

This Letter reports on how the interfaces in the (1+1)-dimensional Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) class undergo, in the course of time, a transition from the flat, growing regime to the stationary one. Simulations of the polynuclear growth model and experiments on turbulent liquid crystal reveal universal functions of the KPZ class governing this transition, which connect the distribution and correl...

We report on the dynamical behavior of defects of strength s=±1/2 in a lyotropic liquid crystal during the annihilation process. By following their positions using time-resolved polarizing microscopy technique, we present statistically significant evidence that the relative velocity between defect pairs is Gaussian distributed, antipersistent, and long-range correlated. We further show that sim...

An experimental study of the B1-B2 transition is carried out in a bent-core liquid crystal. The study is essentially based on x-ray measurements as a function of temperature. The B1-B2 transition is extremely unusual and implies a deep structural change from a columnar phase to a lamellar phase. We have found that the B1 phase in our compound is similar to the so-called B1 reversed phase, with ...

We present the macroscopic equations for polar nematic liquid crystals. We consider the case where one has both, the usual nematic director, n[over ] , characterizing quadrupolar order as well as the macroscopic polarization, P , representing polar order, but where their directions coincide and are rigidly coupled. In this case one has to choose P as the independent macroscopic variable. Such e...

The nature of glass phases of liquid crystals in random porous media depends on the effective disorder strength. We study how the disorder strength depends on the density of the porous media and demonstrate that it can increase as the density decreases. We also show that the interaction of the liquid crystal with random porous media can destroy long-range order inside the pores.

2014 Examination of deuteron magnetic resonance data in different thermotropic systems calls into question the explanation recently proposed by Bos and Doane wherein (i) the average molecular conformation does not change with temperature, even at phase transitions, and (ii) uniaxial and biaxial (Smc) mesophases are characterized by two and three molecular order parameters, respectively. Some co...